Grounding a dust collector

[Jonny]

SO I carved Fletchers insert. I read posts and replies about grounding until I was blind. I'm still not sure to proceed. It's a wood insert, and will be most likely connected to a 4" dryer hose, one of the rubbery plastic ones for now, then into a plenum with an old furnace squirrel cage and then shot out the wall into my yard. Hillbilly yes, but it'll work.

GROUNDING: I can't make heads or tails of all the information posted about this. Someone correct me if I'm wrong here: I can just run a copper wire from the insert, along the pipe, to the metal plenum, and again on the out-feed pipe, attaching it every foot or so and then to my ground source, right?

NEXT: what's a ground source? Stick a metal rod on the ground in the yard and feed a wire from it into the shop? Can I run a wire out of the wall from the ground leg at one of the outlets?

Baby talk please with any responses - Some of the thicker posts I've read went right over my head, and I want to have at least a basic understanding of what I'm doing and especially "why".

[dbfletcher]

SO I carved Fletchers insert. I read posts and replies about grounding until I was blind. I'm still not sure to proceed. It's a wood insert, and will be most likely connected to a 4" dryer hose, one of the rubbery plastic ones for now, then into a plenum with an old furnace squirrel cage and then shot out the wall into my yard. Hillbilly yes, but it'll work.

GROUNDING: I can't make heads or tails of all the information posted about this. Someone correct me if I'm wrong here: I can just run a copper wire from the insert, along the pipe, to the metal plenum, and again on the out-feed pipe, attaching it every foot or so and then to my ground source, right?

NEXT: what's a ground source? Stick a metal rod on the ground in the yard and feed a wire from it into the shop? Can I run a wire out of the wall from the ground leg at one of the outlets?

Baby talk please with any responses - Some of the thicker posts I've read went right over my head, and I want to have at least a basic understanding of what I'm doing and especially "why".

I would not run another ground. Depending on where your current grounding rod is, it is possible to induce a ground loop with multiple grounds. Safest just to use the ground already in you recepticles. I tie the machine and every coupling from the machine back to the DC to ground. I ran uninsulated copper stranded grounding wire inside all of my duct work and make sure there is a continuous path for any static to flow from th machine all the way back to earth ground. It's not as difficult as it sounds. In the end, you should be able to use a continuity tester and get a good tone from any metal on you machien to any ground on any outlets if the grounds are all properly bounded to one another.

I know I posted these in another thread, but will add them again here for completeness.

[Digitalwoodshop]

Yes, that is correct.... Don't add a new ground rod as this will cause a Ground Loop problem where one ground rod is more grounded then the other.... and a measurement with some serious electronic equipment would show one ground rod actually measuring a voltage compared to the other. Think of it as a grounding rod with a 1.5 volt battery attached to it... The one with the battery attached and then attached to your dust collector would have a higher voltage then the main power ground at the power panel.

SO if your Fan Motor has a 3 wire plug on it and it hooked to a properly grounded outlet. Then you could attach a bear copper wire to the frame of the fan and through the hose all the way to the machine. Out a hole in the hose and a gator clip to the in feed tray of the machine and your DONE.

I hook to 3 places on my dust collector and 3 places on my machine.... The In feed Tray, the Copper Collector with foil dryer hose, and my metal roll around cart.

The static will still build up inside your plastic dryer duct AS large amounts of dust move through it.....

There is a bunch of stuff posted on Wood Web about grounding Dust Collectors. One guy had ALL PVC Pipe in his shop and was cleaning up and at a floor collector pushed a broom load of shavings into the collector. He continued cleaning and touched his hand on the outside of the PVC Pipe that now had a 25 Thousand Volt Charge on it from the shavings passing through it.... He Woke UP with a bump on his head.... Knocked unconscious and hit his head on the floor.... A Copper Wire through the pipe and along the outside connected every few feet between the inside and outside fixed the problem.

Good Luck.

AL